RLSP boss Upendra Kushwaha is busy cooking kheer and playing gilli-danda, while keeping mum on NDA seat-sharing for the 2019 polls and his party colleague’s criticism of the National Democratic Alliance leadership.
Upset about seat-sharing, Nagmani, the party’s national working president, had last week declared the BJP was forcing it to leave the NDA and move to the Grand Alliance. When Kushwaha was asked about a purported 20:20 formula in the NDA — 20 seats for the BJP and 20 seats for rest of the allies — a couple of days later, he had replied in the cricket metaphor.
“I do not have any experience of cricket and I have never got the opportunity to play this game,” he had said. “The only game which I have played, as I am from a village, is gilli-danda… I do not like any other game.”
Political watchers said Nagmani has, however, been given a free hand to attack the BJP and chief minister Nitish Kumar to drive a hard bargain. On Saturday, too, Nagmani said the RLSP is neither the BJP’s ghulam (slave) nor its pichlaggu (sidekick).
“We are not ghulam or pichlaggu of the BJP. The RLSP is not surviving because of the BJP. We have our own votebank and seat-sharing must take place based on the voteshare of every party in the NDA,” he said.
Nagmani Telegraph picture
The latest buzz now is the BJP and JDU — the main NDA constituents — are likely to contest almost equal number of seats for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. The rest will go to the other allies.
In 2014, the LJP had been given seven seats and the RLSP three. While RLSP won all its seats, LJP won 6. For 2019, the LJP is likely to get five or six seats and RLSP is not more than two seats. This means BJP and JDU will have over 30 seats for themselves.
For now, Kushwaha’s RLSP is the main hurdle in giving a final shape to the seat-sharing formula.
Nagmani was in Jehanabad on Saturday to review preparations for a function on Sunday to mark the martyr day of Shaheed Jagdeo Prasad, also known as the Lenin of Bihar.
A former Union minister, Nagmani, who is also a habitual party-hopper, reiterated that Nitish has a vote share of just 1.5 per cent to 2 per cent while Kushwaha has a strong vote share of 10 per cent.
He claimed that because of their voteshare, the NDA and Grand Alliance in Bihar want to take the RLSP in their respective fold.
